In bringing new life to the neglected gardens surrounding an 18th-century French château, acclaimed landscape designer Louis Benech balances classic formality with clean-lined modernity

Exterior

Exterior

Even the most intrepid buyer might find acquiring a down-at-the-heels late-18th-century château a daunting experience—all the more so if the landscaping around it has also been neglected. This was the situation facing a French couple who purchased precisely such a château near Orléans in the late 1990s. But when it came to reviving the grounds, they knew exactly what to do: They contacted Louis Benech, a French garden designer with an affinity for restoration projects.

The entrance of a château near Orléans, France; the grounds were restored by French landscape designer Louis Benech. The house is flanked by lilac bushes and Atlas cedars, and Benech had the yews shaped into cones.

Garden Pools

Garden Pools

Benech has a reputation for creating landscapes that fit seamlessly into their natural surroundings. His career got a jump-start in 1990 when, as he tells it, he was "dragged" into partnership by a fellow landscape designer for an international competition to redevelop the Tuileries gardens in front of the Louvre. To his surprise, they won, and since then he has made and remade gardens in many parts of the world for a roster of high-profile clients, including François Pinault, Guy de Rothschild, and Princess Caroline of Monaco. For the owners of this estate, Benech had already worked on their garden in Paris.

Benech restored the series of pools behind the house, which are original to the 1837 garden plan.